PORTLAND, Ore. -- David Garrett helped propel the offense with a pair of goals as the USF men's soccer team improved to 4-1-0 in WCC play with a 3-1 victory at Portland on Sunday afternoon. Garrett netted his team-leading sixth and seventh goals of the season, becoming the third USF player this year to score multiple goals in a game.  

With Sean Bowman adding an insurance score in the 62nd minute, all the USF defense had to do was maintain the same steady approach that's helped the Dons limit opponents to just four goals in five conference contests. 

"Collectively we defended really well against a good attacking team," said second-year head coach Eddie Soto. "Portland has a lot of dangerous players on the offensive end, but we did a good job of holding them off. Overall, it was a great team performance."

Garrett put the Dons (6-10-0, 4-1-0) ahead with both goals coming within a two-minute span. His first score came in the 25th minute when he used a pass from Manny Padilla to connect from six yards out. Garrett then put the Dons up 2-0 with another goal two minutes later, this time he was unassisted as he slipped one past Portland keeper Paul Christensen from seven yards out. 
   
"David's in good form right now," said Soto about his leading goal scorer. "He's putting himself in position to score goals and taking advantage of it."

Five of Garrett's seven goals this season have come since the start of WCC play. This was his first career multi-goal performance. 

Bowman gave the Dons a comfortable 3-0 lead when he scored his fourth goal of the season in the 62nd minute when Bryce Kaminski's high bouncing pass setup Bowman for the score from 10 yards out. 

Portland (2-11-3, 0-5-0) eventually got on the board with Erik Edwardson's goal in the 66th minute off a cross from Hugo Rhoads. 

"They're a good soccer team," added Soto, whose squad comes away with a 2-0 weekend on the road following Friday's win at Gonzaga. "They play soccer really well. Throughout the match momentum was shifting back and forth, but the majority of time we were creating opportunities and being patient with it. It was really good to see our guys being patient with the ball. Our guys are happy we won. We told ourselves we had a job to do this weekend and we did it." 

Altogether, USF outshot Portland 13-7 and held an 8-3 advantage in corner kicks. 

Andre Glasnovic collected three saves in goal for the Dons as he saw his goals against average in WCC play dip to 0.79.

The Dons move on to face conference-leader San Diego at 5 p.m. on Friday in San Diego. USF will then round out the regular season with a home match on Nov. 14 against LMU.